Beijing 2008: China invites Sonia, not PM or Prez

14 Jul 2008, 0001 hrs IST,TNN
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NEW DELHI: Eighty heads of state and government will grace the Beijing Olympics in August but PM Manmohan Singh will not be among them.

Not because he is too busy, but because he was not invited. In fact, neither India's head of state nor government have been invited, with the invitation going to its most important politician, Sonia Gandhi.

The Congress chief is unlikely to attend, leaving that job to sports minister M S Gill. But even if you are really charitable, it can't be denied that it's yet another Chinese snub of pretty large proportions, and no amount of earnest protestations from government functionaries about the wonderful state of Sino-Indian relations will change that.

In October 2007, when Sonia visited Beijing, she received a welcome fit for a head of state. It raised eyebrows in India because it showed where the Chinese government was focusing its attention. It was then that the Chinese leadership first extended an invitation to her to attend the Bejing Olympic Games.

Although the government was the first to deny it, the scale of Sonia's visit prompted a delay in the prime minister's visit to Beijing. He was initially supposed to make his summit visit at the end of 2007, but this had to be pushed to the new calendar year. In 2008, the Beijing Olympics acquiring a distinct political hue with the Tibetan protests. Consequently, India-China ties took on a strained look, made worse by China's repeated incursions in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim.

China's internal troubles did not stop it from keeping the Indian government is a state of permanent squirm — first with repeated claims to Arunachal and then by incursions into Sikkim. In fact, foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee was faced with a sudden cancellation of his meeting with Chinese premier Wen Jiabao.

Also by this time, China had invited pretty much every world leader to the Olympics, but maintained a silence on India. India wasn't on the first list, or the second. While the Chinese government has invited the who's who in terms of heads of government to the Games, in the case of India, it made a clear distinction between the head of government and the most powerful political leader in the ruling combine. When Mukherjee visited Beijing in June, the formal invitation was finally made — to Sonia. Officials, when questioned, evaded the issue.

The PM would not have gone, said officials trying to defend the lack of an invitation. In October, Singh will be in Beijing for the ASEM summit, which officials say will be his second visit there this year. So a third visit during the Olympics was not on his radar. But as with much of India-China thorny issues, this too is looking more and more like a post-facto justification. Sources requesting anonymity said the Chinese leadership, which also derives its strength from the party, merely looked at the Indian leadership through that perspective.

However, seen in almost any light, the Chinese decision is little short of a snub to the PM personally and his office.

Terror threat to Games: China shuts mosques

11 Jul 2008, 0101 hrs IST, Saibal Dasgupta,TNN
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BEIJING: Chinese authorities have replaced top police and security officials in the Muslim dominated Xinjiang province, which is the hotbed of separatism and political violence. They have also closed down 41 "illegal" places of worship.

These places of worship were used as training ground for conducting a "holy war", Chen Zhuangwei Chen, the police chief of Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang province, said. Xinjiang, which borders central Asia and Pakistan, has been the scene of a pro-independence movement by a section of the eight million Uighurs living there for a long time.

The authorities also announced they have detained 82 "suspected terrorists" in the past six months in view of fears that they might disrupt the Olympic Games. They belong to five groups that "allegedly plotted sabotage against the Beijing Olympics", the official Xinhua news agency quoted the police chief in Urumqi, Xinjiang's capital, as saying.

The government has annouced the replacement of army and security officials in the ranks of three deputy core commanders, political commissars and the head of the Communist Party organisation department in the army. The replacement suggests that the central government has been unhappy about the inability of local officials to put down the surging separatist movement in the province.

The new head of the organisation department is Liu Xiang Song, the government announced. One of the three new core commanders is Hanabati Sabukhaya, an officer from the Kazak race. Xinjiang borders Kazakisthan and several other countries including Pakistan and Russia. "From now, all police officers must act urgently, get involved once more in Olympic security, to make sure large and small incidents alike do not happen," Chen was quoted by official media as saying.

Sania-Sunitha get wildcard for doubles at Olympics

CNN-IBN

TimePublished on Thu, Jul 03, 2008 at 21:05, Updated at Thu, Jul 03, 2008 in Sports section

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BEIJING-BOUND: Sania Mirza already has a direct entry for the singles at the Olympics.

BEIJING-BOUND: Sania Mirza already has a direct entry for the singles at the Olympics.

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New Delhi: Sania Mirza's doubles campaign may be over at Wimbledon but there is some good news for her to celebrate.

Along with Sunitha Rao, Sania has been granted a wildcard to play in the doubles competition at the Beijing Olympics.

Sunitha is currently the second highest ranked Indian on the WTA charts and has represented India in the Federation Cup.

Sania already has a direct entry for the singles at the Olympics.

Players from 21 countries will take part in the women's doubles competition from August 10 to 17 at the Olympics.

Save Tibet from Cruel Communists -- Boycott Beijing Olympics

In my opinion Humanity is much more important than just olympic games. So we should be morally courageous enough to stand up against Chinese atrocities in Tibet and save these peace loving followers of Dalai Lama from Cruel Communist rule of China.
The best way is to spread the message of Boycott of Chinese Beijing Olympics & pressurize your governments to do so.
That's how you can show your disapproval of communist aggression against a hapless neighbor.
Also start a movement to boycott Chinese products worldwide...

Dr. Rajesh Bhatia,
California,
USA